Is the term "racism" being stretched too far, applied to too many things?

As the title says: Is the term "racism" being stretched too far, being applied to too many things, nowadays?

Is wearing a cultural costume for a photo, racism? Can an African man wear lederhosen while holding a stein of beer for a photo without being racist? Can a Swedish woman wear a kimono while holding an umbrella for a photo without being racist? Can a Japanese man and woman dress as Rhett and Scarlet for a costume party without being racist?

Is identifying a person by their race, (as one would identify a person by their shirt color, their long/short hair, etc.), racism?*

Can one be an "accidental racist"?

Is racism strictly a white person offense? (See African man in lederhosen example, above.)

* An example of what I mean: Black and White Difference blog post NOTE: I really don't want this discussion to be about this particular blog post. I'm only offering it here as an example of what I'm meaning by "identifying a person by their race."

Bullgrit

Is racism strictly a white person offense?

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Oh HELL no!

Every race has its racists...some of whom even hate their own kind.

Can one be an "accidental racist"?

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Most certainly!

Oddly enough a friend of mine posted pictures of himself in full Bavarian Oktoberfest tracht last year, while he was in Germany. He's also black. I would refer to it as more comical than racist.

The term racist is not only overused, but generally improperly used. The appropriate term is generally "bigot." Given that the classic concept of race is also going the way of the dodo, the term racist should probably be retired too.

Identifying someone by their 'race' can be an effective shorthand for certain physical attributes, when used appropriately, without being 'racist.' It can also be very vague and there are times when it's meaningless. For example me identifying my friend in lederhosen as black only really has meaning in the context of this thread. I would otherwise just refer to him as "Franz." (Yes, the black guy who posted pictures of himself in full Oktoberfest regalia has a Germanic name)

No, I don't think that you can be an 'accidental' racist. You could be an obtuse racist. Thick. Very un-self aware.

I've experienced bigotry as a Caucasian. I've seen racism by one 'non white' group against a member of another 'non white' group. People make value judgments. Sometimes those judgments are based on bigotry.

The thing that seems odd to me is that there seems to be a big move among some progressive types to say that you cannot call something racism unless their is systemic power involved, which leads them to the conclusion that in the Canada, the US, and the like, mostly only white people can be "racist" , unless someone else is perhaps talking about aboriginals.

While I understand this point completely, the fact is that it runs contrary the how the vast majority of white people use the term "racism" . In language, usage is supposedly king. And there is another strain in progressive thought that suggests we should be cool with the diversification of language, as that which leads to dialects; that we should consider a lingo like Ebonix as a legitimate dialect of English and not something to be ironed out of people. Yet I can easily believe those same people that would encourage that sort of thing would then turn around and get all bent out of shape by the most people will use the term "racism" to not just mean "systemic oppression" but also common prejudice and bigotry of all sorts.

To answer some of your questions though, I am not sure if it is becoming too widely used a term in general. And you can totally be an accidental racist. That is why they call it "ignorance" . Whether all cultural appropriation counts as racism is a little dicey, I suppose. Particularly as what exactly counts as appropriation is kind of confusing, at least to me. If you look at some of the debates around cultural appropriation in popular music, I am not sure what makes something count as appropriation instead of exchange when it has been sold commercially for decades to a wide audience.

In some ways, maybe it's not being stretched enough. There are elements of nationalistic prejudice or stereotype which very closely mimic racism but are based on citizenship rather than ethnicity.

Bullgrit said:

Can a Japanese man and woman dress as Rhett and Scarlet for a costume party without being racist?

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That one is easy. You can dress as any specific character without being racist. I can dress as Blade; Dannyalcatraz can dress as Robin Hood. Changing your skin colour for it is not OK, of course.

I can't dress as "a black guy" and he can't dress as "a white guy". A Japanese person can't dress as "a white person", but they can dress as Rhett and Scarlet.

On accidental racism: Isn't racism the belief/stance that one race (usually one's own) is superior, or that another race is inferior? So I don't see how a person can accidentally believe something.

I've heard people point out accidental racism, and it always struck me as so very odd.

On seeing a guy acting suspicious around his friend's bicycle: "Hey, dude, that guy is checking out your unlocked bike. He might be thinking of stealing it."

If the guy is white, well, "Thanks for the warning. I'll keep my eye on him."

If the guy is black, well, "Hey, that's racist." I've seen this kind of thing pointed out as "accidental racism."

I can't dress as "a black guy" and he can't dress as "a white guy". A Japanese person can't dress as "a white person", but they can dress as Rhett and Scarlet.

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I meant to say "dressed in antebellum attire" because I was trying to pick something definitely "white," but then I balked and went with specific characters. (Not that anyone would recognize those two specific characters without being told.) And what about the other two examples in that paragraph?

Bullgrit

Ryujin said:

No, I don't think that you can be an 'accidental' racist. You could be an obtuse racist. Thick. Very un-self aware.

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[video=youtube;j1Rl65upsqE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Rl65upsqE&sns=em[/video]

I think this lady genuinely didn't know what she was saying when she used a racist epithet- her co-anchor vouched for her.

I posted an INCREDIBLY bigoted post here a few years ago, completely by accident. I was trying to make a point about Islamic extremism...but in my haste to post before running an errand, I left out the important qualifiers like "extremism". IOW, I called every Muslim in the world a terrorist, which was not my intent, and in no way describes my mindset.

By the time I got home a few hours later, I found I had gotten a 3 day ban, and appropriately so, even though the event was completely accidental. The mods- I believe it was Umbran who actually swung the hammer- had no way of reading my mind. As far as anyone could see, I was a Grade A bigot.

On accidental racism: Isn't racism the belief/stance that one race (usually one's own) is superior, or that another race is inferior? So I don't see how a person can accidentally believe something.

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As you can probably guess from my examples, I think that "accidental racism" can be as simple as using language, expressing an idea or behaving in a way that is racist without realizing it.

Are teachers being intentionally racist when they disproportionally call on white kids more than black kids? Or punish blacks more than whites? I don't think so, but it happens. A LOT. It's called implicit bias, and blacks do it too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/27/black-students-punished_n_7449538.html

Dannyalcatraz said:

I think this lady genuinely didn't know what she was saying when she used a racist epithet- her co-anchor vouched for her.

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Is she a racist if she didn't have a clue what the word meant, or does she just have room for rent in the penthouse? I would say the latter.

Ryujin said:

Is she a racist if she didn't have a clue what the word meant, or does she just have room for rent in the penthouse? I would say the latter.

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I think she simply used a word that she didn't know the meaning of, I don't think she was (otherwise) stupid.

She had probably heard someone else use the word in context- since she DID use it in a common manner- but without understanding that the speaker meant the context to be offensive.

Because- let's face it- if you had no idea of the word's meaning, it sounds too...funny...to be hateful. Absent its history, it sounds like something you might find in a kid's book. Or possibly as a Pokemon character, alongside Jigglypuff & Pikachu.

"I choose YOU, __________!"

(Try it, it sounds hilarious.)

A couple of random thoughts -- I slept badly and my mind is a bit too fuzzy to make a structured argument:

I find that my acquaintances of Asian descent tend to be quite racist toward black people. Note that I'm only talking about people I know myself, not Asian people in general.

I used to frequent rugby discussion forums. The Welsh fans in particular had a tendency to accuse the English fans of racism. I know that in the rugby community England and its fans are generally labelled "arrogant", but the Welsh fans would take any expression of confidence from an English fan (a "Saes") as "racism" toward the "Celts".

A few months ago Benedict Cumberbatch was accused of being racist when he used the expression "people of colour". A while ago that was considered a very neutral term, but things have changed and BC hadn't realised. Does that make him racist, even accidentally?